Office Arrest: The Shame of John Conyers
By Dave Lindorff
If Rosa Parks had lived two years longer, what happened today in the halls of Congress might have killed her. It certainly would have broken her heart.
Rep. John Conyers, venerable member of Congress, finally chair of the House Judiciary Committee, a man who worked with Parks in Alabama and then hired her on his staff after he won election to Congress in Detroit, today had several dozen impeachment activists, including Gold Star Families for Peace founder Cindy Sheehan, Iraq Veteran Against the War activist Lennox Yearwood and Intelligence Veterans for Sanity founder Ray McGovern arrested for conducting a sit-in in his office in the Rayburn House Office Building.
The three, together with several hundred other impeachment activists who packed the fourth floor hallway outside Rep. Conyers’ office, had come to press Conyers to take action on impeachment, and specifically to start action on H.Res. 333, the bill submitted nearly three months ago by Rep. Dennis Kucinich calling for the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney.
After nearly an hour of talking with Conyers, a clearly angry Sheehan emerged together with Yearwood and McGovern, and announced to the waiting throng in the hall that Conyers had told them “impeachment isn’t going to happen because we don’t have the votes.” Sheehan said Conyers had insisted that the best thing was for Democrats to focus on “winning big in 2008.”
To a loud and angry chorus of boos and hisses, the three went back inside Conyers’ office suite, where they were joined by some 30 other supporters, and all were subsequently arrested, at Conyers’ request, by Capitol police, who cuffed them and walked them off for booking. Several of those who sat in refused to walk and were carried or dragged out of the Rayburn Office Building, as the activists in the hall chanted “Shame on Conyers! Shame on Conyers!” and “Arrest Bush, Not the People!”
It was a thoroughly disgraceful scene wholly unworthy of a dean of the Congressional Black Caucus.
Before returning to sit in the Judiciary Chairman’s office and await arrest, Sheehan publicly announced her intention to run in 2008 as an independent candidate for Congress against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and she called on Americans everywhere to run not just against Republicans in 2008, but against Democrats too.
Yearwood, who is a chaplain in the Air Force, said that Conyers had been a mentor to him, but he declared that he now felt betrayed and that Americans needed to take back their government. As he was led down the hall to his arraignment, the handcuffed Yearwood pointedly sang “We Shall Overcome!”
This reporter subsequently called Conyers’ press office for an explanation of Conyers’ true position on impeachment. Only a few days earlier the congressman, visiting a San Diego meeting on health care reform, had told members of Progressive Democrats of America that it was time to “take these two guys (Bush and Cheney) out” and had promised that if just “a few more” members of the House signed on to the Kucinich bill (it already has 14 co-sponsors), he would move it forward for consideration in his Judiciary Committee. Asked how that statement squared with what he had told the group of activists in his office, the spokesman said Conyers’ “must have been misunderstood” in San Diego. He said that in view of Conyers’ statement to Sheehan and the others today, the Kucinich bill was “not going to go anywhere.”
As impeachment activist David Swanson of AfterDowningStreet.org has said, there “seems to be two John Conyers,” one who, in 2005 and early 2006, while Republicans controlled the House, was systematically making the case for impeaching the president and vice president (he had even submitted a bill, with 39 co-sponsors, which called for creation of a select committee to investigate possible impeachable crimes by the administration), and one who, submitting to the wishes of the new House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, was keeping impeachment “off the table.”
Occasionally the former Conyers breaks out, saying things such as that the president needs to be “taken out” or, as he put it at an anti-war rally last spring, that “we can fire him!” But then the other Conyers comes to the fore, and stands in the way of impeachment action.
This time, however, it was worse than just doing nothing. The arrest of impeachment activists and their forcible eviction from his office was a betrayal of people who were doing the very kind of thing that had allowed Conyers to make his way into Congress in the first place: sitting in to insist on action on their demands for justice. It was, after all, sit-ins that helped lead to the Voting Rights Act which allowed African American candidates like Conyers to finally win seats in the US Congress.
It is becoming increasingly clear that the Democratic Party—Congressional Black Caucus and Progressive Caucus included--has become nothing but a dried out husk, living on old glories and devoid of any principle other than returning its elected officials to their offices and their perks, year after year. As one angry activist in the hallway remarked, “Where is today’s (Rep. Allard) Lowenstein or Father Drinan. There is none!”
It’s ironic that Rep. Conyers, speaking in 2005 on “Democracy Now!” following Rosa Parks’ death at the age of 92, said her passing “is probably the end of an era.” Certainly, with his request to have Capitol Police officers enter his office (the very office where Parks once had worked as a staff member!) to cuff and arrest peaceful protesters who were trying to defend the Constitution, he has made that point far more clearly than he could have expressed it in mere words.
But as in the case of Rosa Parks and the Civil Rights movement, arrests and fines will not stop the national grassroots drive to impeach this president and vice president. With polls showing that a majority of the country now favors impeachment, and with Conyers, Pelosi, and the Democratic Congress sinking deeper and deeper into disfavor even as the president continues to add to his list of Constitutional crimes, something’s gotta give. After all, the Founders, in writing impeachment into the Constitution, did not say the test was whether Congress had the votes to impeach. They wrote that if the president abused his power, or committed other high crimes and misdemeanors, bribery or treasson, Congress "shall" impeach.
The American public has made it clear: we want impeachment and we want the troops home.
If Congress doesn’t act on these two key issues, they will not get that “big win” Conyers’ called for in 2008.
Some members of the Democratic Caucus may not even be back if they keep this up.
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DAVE LINDORFF is co-author, with Barbara Olshansky, of “The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006 and now available in paperback). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net
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www.VelvetRevolution.us
With the Constitution; or With the President.
We the People may prosecute Members of Congress who refuse to assert their oath.
Choose.
Office Arrest: The Shame of John Conyers
Democrat voters have to get serious in the selection of democrats in the primary election. Listen to what someone says when running for office does not cut it.
We need to dig deep into their background on the candidates that we elect to run our government and protect our democracy, freedom and social programs.
looks as if Global Corporations have funded large amoungs of funds to our candidates to influence their policies and decisions. We also have to find a way to stop the large funds needed for a candidate to run , which stops qualified candidate which would be more on the level of our citizens.
Global Corporations have taken over the republican party , the news media and now looks as if our democrats are being influenced by the might.
Personally all I hear from the democrats is talk and I do not see any accomplishment from them. The only bones they have been given are the ones to make sure that Cheney gets OUR TAX DOLLARS so they can continual to give it to their war contractors and conservative , religious mercenary army that they will use when they claim their dictatorship.
We know d.. well that Cheney , Bush and the republican are not going to give up the dictatorship and the democrats are either to gut less or you call it to stop them..
Let's Not Forget History....
The Declaration of Arbroath
(Substitute "English for Neo-Con at it all seems so modern)
Every Scot knows that the Declaration of Arbroath was one of the greatest and most important statements of human rights ever written. Few people are aware that it had as powerful an influence on the USA as it did on Scotland.
This historic document was first written in 1320 - six years after Robert the Bruce's historic victory against Edward II at Bannockburn - as a plea to the Pope to stop supporting the English and recognise Scotland's independence. The appeal worked, but the most profound impact came nearly 500 years later when it was used as the basis for the American Declaration of Independence.
The rousing, central words of the American statement of July 4, 1776 almost exactly mirror the bold sentiments and cry for justice and human rights made in Scotland by the Bruce's nobles and bishops.
It famously says: "As long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any condition be brought under English domination. It is in truth not for glory, nor for riches, nor for honour that we are fighting, but only and alone for freedom, which no good man surrenders but with his life."
Why should the founding fathers of modern America use this as their guiding light? More than half of them were of recent Scots descent and knew the importance the Arbroath document had on the old country they hailed from. Scottish influence in the creation of the United States cannot be overstated
It's "WE THE PEOPLE"...not WE the PUPPETS!!!
We Don't Need Him.....
Forget Conyers. If he won't listen, start banging on the doors of the other Dems on the Judiciary. Three of them have already signed on.
Explain that "having the votes" is irrelevant to their constitutional obligation to vote the resolution out of committee and onto the floor if they feel Cheney 's action merit impeachment.
Explain that without the possibility of impeachment, there is no remaining check against the executive branch - a terrifying precedent to set, regardless of who is in the White House.
Explain that no person has the authority to take a peaceful, constitutional option "off the table".
Explain that the best strategy in 2008 is to take bold action, because Americans want impeachment, and Americans hate cowards.
Call Now.
Bravo-Zulu, Dave Lindorff!
Thank You, Dave, for being there, and for your eloquent report, beautifully worded. Again, you hit the nail squarely on the head, quoting the Constitution saying "shall" be impeached. Not "may" be, "might" be nor "oughtta" be, but "SHALL" be.
Conyers is obstructing justice, pure and simple.
It amazes me (though I guess it shouldn't) that he still clings to that worn out "we don't have the votes" shit. Presumptive evidence that it is indeed a "talking point", issued straight from the top. I guess any more the Democrats are just "phoning it in" - they are that idealogically and ethically bankrupt.
Rosa Parks is indeed turning over in her grave, God Rest Her, at the sight of what her once fellow traveller has become today.
Semper Fi,
-Matty in Florida
Thomas Paine Smiles Tonight
A few decades before Thomas Paine wrote "Common Sense", which arguably spurred on the revolution from King George III, there existed a coterie of men known variously as progressives, radicals, philosopes. illuministi,, and founding fathers, who had come to the fantastical notion that civilization could be improved through the application of human reason. In time through their efforts, the lives of millions of ordinary citizens would be dramatically improved, and many of their dreams, once widely ridiculed, would become so commonplace that today it is a struggle to appreciate the dramatic labor of their births.
Thomas Paine would smile tonight because he insisted that tyrants, monarchs, and legislators had no power unless the citizens of the state granted it to them-that the world's greatest power lay within the united action of ordinary people.
We hold the power, not John Conyers! Step up your resolve, double your efforts, we have momentum on our side.
If you are looking to get pumped up, read John Nichols "The Genius of Impeachment, or Craig Nelson's biography of Thomas Paine. I just finished both, and they have helped me remember that we are not powerless, as a matter of fact, we hold all the power, and in time we will prevail!
Why should anyone again sacrifice for them?
Removal from office is not the only constitutional consequence of impeachment. The President’s ability to pardon is conditioned on the offenses not being cases of impeachment.
The Constitution says “except in Cases of Impeachment.” It says nothing regarding conviction.
This administration has shown that there are no limits to the laws that they will violate for their own political gain. Their list of crimes is too lengthy to recite; most of them are listed in the Declaration of Independence.
What this non-action, endorsed by John Conyers, has accomplished is to allow the President to grant pardons to all of his accomplices. Whatever they have done or will do, it doesn’t matter. Unless this President and Vice President are impeached these criminals will walk away free.
I have had two members of congress tell me directly that this administration is criminal. And now they are say that those calling for redress through impeachment are divisive?
They have said that there are no statutes of limitations on their crimes. And now they say the perpetrators of these acts are free of consequences?
In nine short months this non-leadership of the demo-cRAT party has demolished the coalition that brought them to power for the first time in 12 years. They have destroyed the work of six years, by not exercising the power they were given. They have refused to demand their place in power after the 2000 and 2004 elections. And now they have refused to exercise the power that they were unable to run from. Why should anyone again sacrifice for them?
Shame Congressman Conyers, Shame
Congress has indeed left the building. We are on our own.
Does anyone know how Dennis Kucinich is doing after his "food poisoning".
http://www.kucinich.us to sign up for his presidential campaign and link to subscribe to kucinich's YouTube videos.
"We don't have the votes" is the Beltway equivalent of...
..."The dog ate my homework".
How do you know you don't have the votes until you PRESENT THE EVIDENCE and TAKE a vote, Mr. Conyers?
Imagine the hell that would be raised if someone committed a murder that was captured on videotape from multiple angles, had dozens of eyewitnesses all giving the same account of the incident, and featured a written plan of action found in the pocket of the suspect, but the prosecutor said "we don't have the votes to convict, so we're not gonna put this guy on trial."
That's essentially what we're dealing with here.
Yet you, Nancy Pelosi, and all these other pseudo public servant democrats are folding like a cheap card table, refusing to honor your oath of office and do the job mandated by the voters in November 2006.
It doesn't matter how long you have served or how much you have accomplished, Mr.Conyers. If you fail to reverse your position on impeachment of the most corrupt, most impeachable executive branch in the history of our country, you will have pissed it all away in very short order.
Is that really the legacy you want to leave? Intimidated into submission by an un-elected president who thinks the Constitution is "just a goddamned piece of paper" and has conducted his entire presidency in direct accordance with that view?
After all you have accomplished, are you really willing to throw it all away by refusing to stand up to a hopelessly ignorant, Oval Office squatting, sliver-spooned malcontent who wouldn't know personal responsibility if you shoved it up his ass and lit it on fire?
Cowardice does not become you, Mr. Conyers.
Video Commentary You'll Never See in the MSM:
johnperryonline.com
Now Playing: "Get Ready for the Real News"
go ahead, defile Rosa Parks
whatever it takes, right?
Ray McGovern arrested at Conyers office
folks, Ray McGovern worked in the White House for many years
He along with other are trying to avert a Military showdown between departments because ITS gotten that bad now that the Pentagon Martial Law documents have been reviewed after being brought back from Iraq. Those documents which are now being emailed everywhere and are slowly appearing on websites since being posted July 16, show how US troops will be sent to occupy this country WHEN martial law is declared.
They arrested him.
This is very serious. Ray McGovern went to the office where Impeachment happens. He was Arrested..... ARESSTED....!
Pray for those caught in tragic events.